Or: How Google changed the face of modern advertising

There was a “dirty little secret” in internet advertising for years. That secret was, every effective advertising campaign was modeled after an effective ad campaign for pornography.

And then came Google.

Google served up relevant advertising based on your current search, search history, or content in pages you sought. It was ground breaking. They used actual data to give you an ad you may be interested in rather than assuming because a user was on a computer they wanted to see raunchy pictures.

And it worked.

It worked so well that Google is capable of doing pretty much anything in the way of research and development with unlimited funding for their pet projects. All of which have been cleverly manipulated to be cool, user friendly, desirable, and deliver relevant advertising content.

Such as:

• 

  Google's Android - outperforms Windows Mobile and provides relevant advertising based on location - genius.

  Android Phones - I link directly to Droid X as it is what I use and is clearly superior.

• Maps
• E-mail
• Television
• Astronomy
• Robot cars
• Financial Prediction
• Alternative Energy

So here is the new development in advertising that may help to save the music industry. They are placing relevant products in content (songs and videos) for cash. If nothing else it will be an opportunity for recording executives to work for their living rather than profiting on artists dreams and hard work.

In this article we see that a dating website has a paid placement in a Lady Gaga video. And that company saw a 20% traffic spike as a result.

Paid placement in a premium position: Google may not have done it first. Companies have paid to have their products featured in movies and television shows for years. However, Google was the first to intuitively and dynamically show advertising relevant to the audience based on more than just their age demographics.

O.K. So product placement in movies and television has been going on for quite sometime (and ruined the Matrix Trilogy) but as the article concludes the added income of product placement will help to increase production budgets.

Product placement has become a staple in television as more people use a DVR to skip through advertising on their favorite weekly sitcom or “reality” show.

Luckily for me, I’ve never been much for commercial music, and my television viewing is a little more PBS in an MTV world, however it will be interesting to see how much more targeted product placement will infiltrate our entertainment in the future.

Original Article

How Much is Too Much?

So I’ve dealt with a number of different web hosts in my day. Service is mediocre and you’re usually left on your own to figure out how to manage anything on their servers. However, I’ve recently been working with a  client who already had a hosting plan with GoDaddy.com.

GoDaddy, Smart marketing or nickel and Dime Whores?

Of course we’ve all seen the big titted spokes models yammering on about their “service” in superbowl ads, and what not. I never had a need to interface with their hosting services.

First off let me say that it is an absolute pleasure to speak with a tech support person who’s accent can be described as “midwestern” rather than “English is a third language” And they’ve been very helpful and patient with my impatient pleas for help.

Here’s the rub: I would like to just log into a control panel, find what I want and manipulate DNS, Name Forwarding, FTP logins, and hosting accounts, simply and cleanly. I do it with my host all the time. However I end up speaking with the GoDaddy techs a lot more than is necessary because I can’t find my way around the interface because it is littered with “Buy this,” “upgrade your hosting,” “purchase this add on,” & “For an additional fee…”

Now I understand cross selling, and I appreciate GoDaddy hiring domestic tech support people to listen to my issues, but it would be a lot easier for everyone involved if they weren’t trying to nickel and dime every web interaction. Personally, I am getting to the point of offended by the in your face, “upgrade to this after we got ya at $4.99 for a domain” BS. And it’s not even my money GoDaddy is trying to sucker out of me.

Just give me a clear explanation of how to connect via ftp already! I’d be more likely to recommend your service to my customers.

For those that haven’t seen it, Jon Stewart of the Daily Show on Comedy Central and Jim Cramer of Fast Money on CNBC have been having a little snipe war over the last week about who is the better credible news source regarding the recent financial meltdown.

To his credit Jim Cramer went on the Daily Show last night for a professional no holds barred discussion about who is complicit, and what CNBC should be doing a better journalistic jobto expose graft, greed, and corruption in the financial markets. Honestly, Jon Stewart took him to the wood shed.

Aside from that, the full version of the interview was posted on the internet, and when you stream it off the Comedy Central Site, Between Part 1 and 2 there is an ad for CitiBank. Now, there is some validity to the content being financial in nature, however the overall content is critical of banks and their role in the devastation that has recently happened in the financial sector. This is not a good venue for CitiBank to be placing ads….

The embedded player may not show the same ads (if any) however, it is still a great interview and worthwhile to watch for anyone who is affected by the current economic downturn (which is everybody)

Pop Under Ad From Freep.com

As advertising dollars have fallen to major newspapers, magazines and other print publications that rely on advertising to keep them operating we have seen a large number of dailies and weeklies fail, close, or get gobbled up by their competitors.

Here in Detroit the Free Press and Detroit News have been struggling for far longer. They entered into a joint operating agreement 15 years ago, that precluded me from ever working there. However as times become mroe challenging the Free press and Detroit news have adopted an industry leading model of online delivery. You can read more about it here.

However, while I understand that advertising dollars are an important part of the equation to keep the operation running one technique they have emplyed, pop under ads, is the scummiest of ad behavior.

Let’s be realistic here, I’m reading the news on a computer, am I really likely to buy screen savers?

I hope the best for the local newspapers and want the freedom of press to continue with professional journalism vs. new media and the amatuer blogger. However, the news sales staffs must look for a credible model of advertising to xompliment credible reporting.

Scam Alert

There is a new scam running around in online ads stating they can show you how to make thousands of dollars using google and posting links… If you’ve spent more then 5 minutes on the internet you’ve seen the ad. The set up is a scam to get your credit information and drain your account. The promised tutorial never arrives. the only people getting rich off this scheme are the scum running the ad.

I’m surprised that Google hasn’t taken steps to address these people trying to scam on their good name. However, with a quick google search you can find a number of links describing the scam.

Remember folks, any get rich scheme is usually a ruse. Anyne you don’t know on the internet promising a fortune is lying.

You can make money with Google Adsense, and it does not take much effort to do so. Please take the time to learn about it straight from google or hire a reputable company to explain and implement the system for you (I suggest Detroit Marketing Services of course). Additionally you can alsu leverage google adwords to increase traffic to your website, which can lead t income if you have a compelling service or product for sale.

This site was developed to openly discuss the trend in advertising to be more vaporous, guerilla if you will, and subsequently, inane.

For example. the latest commercial drawing attention to itself is the microsoft commercial featuring Jerry Sienfeld. Or is it a Seinfield commercial featuring Bill Gates? Who’s promoting whose lack of career here? Maybe Jerry and Bill are planning a duet comedy routine tour.

See for yourelf:

Maybe Jerry and Bill are going to do a comedy duet tour…. Won’t be as good as these guys: